How to avoid common keyword mistakes

SEO can be a tricky, fickle beast. You can spend days, weeks or even months creating an optimal organic or local SEO campaign, only to be brought down by one or two small mistakes that could easily have been avoided.

For example, according to MarketingProfs, it's best not to prejudge a user's search habits, especially if you're marketing to a global audience. Instead, place yourself in the shoes of your consumers and attempt to find out which keywords they're actually typing into Google, Bing and other search engines.

For instance, many of your consumers may not be familiar with all common product names. How can you know for sure? Set up a poll on your website and ask users for the names of products they like using the most. Other ways to discover keyword trends include creating a social media campaign to track responses, feedback, opinions and questions, or utilizing Google Analytics for a more quantitative look at which keyword or phrase combinations are most popular.

When it comes to popular keywords, always assume that your competition has the same ideas as you. In general, it's extremely difficult to focus on the most well-known keywords for your niche and obtain "fruitful results" from your campaign, the news source notes.

"Thousands of other webmasters are already spending their time, money and resources to gain the first spot," the media outlet explains, "(so) you have only a slight chance of landing in the top three results."

The blog Curious Little Person suggests targeting at least eight to 10 long-tail keywords with low competition related to the main keyword. Single-word phrases don't work here because their level of broadness will make it impossible to stand out from the crowd. Give your consumers credit and realize they're becoming more search-savvy and typing in more specific variations of central keywords to find what they want. Being more specific will "filter all the useless traffic," notes MarketingProfs, "allowing you to concentrate on the core audience more effectively."

Lastly, the news source suggests never underestimating the power of tracking results via Google Analytics (or other site analytics tools).

"By tracking goals and conversions, you'll be able to filter keywords according to priority," the media outlet explains. "It is highly possible that a less-popular phrase that gets only a few searches results in a huge conversion ratio."